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Content descriptions

Summary, etc.:

"Barrie Anne Blythe and her aunt Charlotte have always known that the other residents of their small coastal community find them peculiar -- two women living alone on the outskirts of town. It is the price of concealing their strange and dangerous family secret. But two events threaten to upend their lives forever. The first is the arrival of a mysterious abandoned baby with a hint of power like their own. The second is the sudden reappearance of Barrie Anne's long-lost husband -- who is not quite the man she thought she married. Together, Barrie Anne and Charlotte must decide how far they are willing to go to protect themselves -- and the child they think of as their own -- from suspicious neighbors, the government, and even their own family..."-- Provided by publisher.

Reviews

Booklist Reviews : Booklist Reviews 2019 April #1Morgan (A Secret History of Witches, 2017) skillfully manipulates time by releasing tantalizing pieces of this story in chapters that alternate interludes in the life of Barrie Anne as an orphan, a bereaved mother, an abandoned wife, and a farmer in the 1930s and '40s. A pivotal moment occurs when her dog, Willow, brings her a soaking-wet bundle of blanket that turns out to contain a baby. Naming the infant Emma, she discovers that her new charge has tiny gills behind her ears. When Aunt Charlotte, who raised her, arrives at her Olympic Peninsula farm, Barrie Anne learns of the family's unusual connection to water and gift of precognition as they strive to protect Emma, especially when two men in black arrive looking for her missing husband. The tiny touches of magic realism, fantasy, and science fiction are intriguing elements, but the strength of Morgan's powerful story is her depiction of this time and place and the everyday struggles of determined women. A great choice for readers who enjoy novels by Alice Hoffman and Barbara Kingsolver. Copyright 2019 Booklist Reviews.

Author Notes

Louisa Morgan is the author of A Secret History of Witches, and a pseudonym for award-winning author Louise Marley. Louise lives in the Pacific Northwest where she and her Border Terrier, Oscar, ramble the beaches and paths of Washington State.